The present invention is related to an apparatus for providing a railing for a scaffold. More particularly, the present invention is related to an apparatus for providing a flexible strand railing, such as a chain, cable, webbing or the like, for a scaffold, a livestock fence, a crowd control barrier or the like.
Federal regulations require that a railing be provided for the outer perimeter of a scaffold that is more than 2 meters (6 ft.) high. Most scaffolding includes horizontal arms that project outwardly from a scaffold form or a wall which it includes a socket at their outer ends for receiving a vertical member, commonly a stake or post. Conventionally, lumber uprights, such as 2″×4″ timbers of appropriate length are installed into the sockets and other 2″×4″ members are horizontally disposed between the upright members and are nailed to them. In most cases, contractors would like to reuse this lumber in making railings for scaffolding installed at different job sites. In practice, however, such timbers are usually lost to other uses before they can be reused on another job site.
Frequently, after the scaffolding has been disassembled, transported to another job site and erection of the scaffolding has begun, the workers learn that the timbers used to form the railing are either missing or have been cut into pieces that make them unsuitable for use as railing. Then workers must leave the job site and go to a lumberyard to purchase replacement timbers. This time-consuming departure from the work of erecting a scaffolding may spell the difference between profit or loss on a particular job.
Efforts to develop reusable railings for scaffolds have led to several United States patents or published patent applications. For example, United States Patent Application Publication Number US 2003/0047382, disclosing an invention by Panacci and published on Mar. 13, 2003, discloses a Scaffolding Safety Apparatus and Method of Installation including a horizontal safety rail secured to vertical upright members. The horizontal safety rail may be connected to the upright members by a U-shaped hook having one end fastened into an aperture in a pinched and flattened end of the horizontal rail member and the other end fastened around the upright member. A spring-loaded U-shaped bracket urging the bracket into contact with the vertical post is used to mount the horizontal railings onto the vertical members. Because the railing could become disconnected from the vertical post, a chain can be used to secure a horizontal member by wrapping it around the member and securing it with a hook with the chain being secured to a channel bracket. This system requires that the horizontal railing members be an exact certain length in order to be connected to the vertical supports for the railing and presumably different lengths of railing would be needed for different types of scaffolds. Further, the hooks used to connect the horizontal railing members to the corresponding vertical support may become disconnected, leaving workers unprotected. U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,256, issued to Wood on Oct. 13, 1992 and involves exactly the same shortcomings.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,698, issued to Reyland on Oct. 17, 2000, discloses a scaffold railing system that requires the horizontal rail members having an outwardly projecting pin that must be aligned with a vertical support member and that must fit into a U-shaped bracket on each of the principal scaffolding vertical support members. This system requires workers to align a number of different pieces and to assemble them, requiring substantial labor and specific exact dimensions between vertical and horizontal scaffold railing members, which may be difficult to achieve in the filed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,862, issued to Palmer on Dec. 28, 1999, also suffers from these exact same disadvantages, as does the U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,262, issued to Helms on Aug. 14, 1973, which discloses a bracket for holding horizontal railing members. In this case, not only must the horizontal railing members be out an exact specific length, they must include a hole drilled all the way through that can be aligned with holes in the retaining brackets, a precision that may not always be easy to achieve in the field.
Therefore, a exists for a railing system for a scaffold that does not require horizontal members of any particular length; that can be reused readily and that has no other convenient use; that does not require working with precise tolerances for a suitable installation; and that can be easily and conveniently assembled and disassembled and stored or transported to a different job site.